Search This Blog

Posts

A flawed but interesting western set in the aftermath of the Civil War. It has been labeled as 'a
strong contender for the dullest Hollywood western ever' (*1), but others think it's a minor classic (*2). It's far from perfect, but tells a story
about racism and hypocrisy that is
probably even more relevant today than it was back in the Sixties. Yul Brynner
is a professional gunfighter who's commisioned to a small border town in
New Mexico. Matt Weaver, a war veteran, has returned to his hometown to reclaim his homestead and his fiancée, but Weaver was one of the few inhabitants of the border town
sympathizing with the Confederacy and therefore wasn't welcomed by the others. Moreover the town boss, a banker named Sam Brewster has sold his farm in his absence and his fiancée (Janice Rule) has
married another man, a Unionist who lost an arm in the war ... Both men of course want Weaver out of town and pay the professional to to the job, but this is
definitely a w…

The Sheriff of Fractured JawIn this
British-American comedy western Kenneth More stars as Jonathan Tibbs, the last
surviving member of a family of British gunsmiths. He has no desire to step
into his father’s boots - he’d rather spend his time on his inventions (that often don’t work at all) - but when he discovers that
the family business is not doing well, he decides to travel West. To the
American West that is, because in the 1880s the Far West has become the best
outlet for guns. Jonathan has never rode a horse or fired a gun, but thanks to
a side-effect of one of his gadgets he is taken for a gunslinger and named
sheriff in the western town of Fractured Jaw. The idea
for the movie is usually traced back to Leo McCarey’s classic comedy Ruggles of
Red Gap (1935) in which an English manservant (played by Charles Laughton) ends
up in the American West, but also seems to have taken inspiration from Nicolai
Gogol’s famous 19th Century play The Inspector General (in Russian Revizor), in…

Burt
Reynolds is Jay Grobart, a former army captain who has spent some time in jail
for shooting the man who raped and murdered his wife, an Indian woman named Cat
Dancing (hence the odd title). After his release, he takes to robbing trains with
three of his friends, Dawes, Billy and Charlie. Sarah Miles is Catherine
Crocker, a highborn Lady who accidently witnesses their latest robbery. Jay wants to take her horse, but Dawes and Billy are also interested in the lady. When they flee into the mountains, they're
persecuted by Lapchance, a railway detective, and lady Catherine's husband William ... I had
always avoided this movie, because of the negative reviews, so I was surprised
to see a genuinely enjoyable western. Okay, it runs for nearly two hours, at
least half an hour too long, and there are a few issues with the script, but
Reynolds and Miles are a nice, unlikely couple and Jack Warden and Bo Hopkins
are an interesting pair of sex-crazed baddies, both trying to get their …

Cattle
Annie and Little Britches (1981) A little
western, loosely based on the real-life adventures of two girls - AnnieMcDoulet and Jennie Stevens - who traveled West to learn more about outlaw
life. They had read Ned Buntline's dime novels about frontier brigandage and
desired to meet their idols in the flesh. The film is
set in the late 19th Century, in a West that is no longer as Wild as it used to
be, and when the girls finally meet the infamous Doolin-Dalton gang, they're
confronted with a demoralized bunch of has-beens ... a wild bunch grown tired
... Their leader, Bill Doolin, feels inspired by the presence of the young girls, but his efforts to live up to their expectations put himself
and his gang in danger of being dismantled by their arch enemy, the patient but
determined sheriff Tighman ... If you
think - like Sergio Leone did - that women basically hold-up the action of a
western movie, this is not a movie for you. It's a western and there's some
western ac…

Showdown (1963) Aka: The Iron Collar
The border town of Adone is one of a kind: it has no
jail, therefore perpetrators are chained to a post in the middle of the town
street. This is what happens to two friends, Chris (Audie Murphy) and Bert
(Charles Drake), after spending a night in town. Chris was already a bit
skeptic about their visit, because his friend has a habit of drinking and
making trouble at the card table. Of course his worries come true: a drunken
Chris provokes a brawl in the saloon and the two end up in the middle of the
street, with an iron collar around their necks.
It's an unpleasant situation, but under normal circumstances
they will be released the next day, so Chris tries to get some sleep while Bert
is sobering up. Unfortunately, they're not alone: also tied to the pole, is a
dangerous outlaw called Lavalle, who forces the others to dig out the
pole. After a brief shootout, the 'prisoners' manage to escape and fly
into the hills. Chris and Bert …

CAHILL: U.S. MARSHALL (1973, Andrew V. McLaglen)
An odd western with Duke as an aging Marshal whose sons go astray because daddy
isn't home enough. They absolutely want his attention and therefore make some
'bad friends' and get involved in a bank robbery. As you might have expected,
things go terribly wrong: nobody was supposed to get hurt, but one of daddy's friends even gets killed, and instead of bad friends, the bank
robbers turn out to be real mean bastards.

It has been
suggested that Cahill, U.S. Marshal was intended as a movie about a cop and a
widower, more busy with his job than with his two growing up kids (*1). Cop thrillers were in the air - thanks to Clint Eastwood's portrayal of Dirty Harry - but apparently it was decided in the last minute to put Big John back in the
saddle, where he belonged. Cahill is definitely a 'post-True Grit' movie: like
the more successful Big Jake (1971), it plays with the new persona Wayne had
adopted in his Oscar…

The Guns of Fort Petticoat (1957) The first
movie production by Murphy-Brown Pictures, a partnership Audie Murphy had
formed with Harry Joe Brown. It remained their only movie because of personal
differences between the two partners. The Guns of Fort Petticoat was panned by
contemporary critics who thought this outlandish story about a petticoat army
fighting off an Indian attack didn't combine well with the historic background
of the plight of the red man, but the movie seems to have withstood the test of
time pretty well and today many think it's one of Murphy's more enjoyable
efforts The story
is set in full Civil War time. Audie Murphy is Lt. Frank Hewitt, a guy from
Dixie in Yankee service. When some Cheyenne braves leave their territory,
Hewitt's commander, the racist Colonel John Chivington decides to punish them
by attacking their virtually unprotected village. The result is an infamy known
to history as the Sand Creek Massacre. Hewitt knows the Indians will see…

Jane Got A Gun Ever since
I saw her in Luc Besson’sLeon: The professional(1994)
I have a soft spot for Natalie Portman. In 1994 she was thirteen, but looking
like a child, today she’s 35, but still looking ever so young. Her juvenile
features inevitably turn her movies into something of a guilty pleasure. In Jane
got a Gun she is a young woman who has lost her innocence, but not her
vulnerability. She’s the mother of a six or seven year old girl and the wife of
a man with a questionable reputation, Bill Hammond (played by Noah
Emmerich).
One day Bill comes home with eight bullets in his back. The
men who shot him, the Bishop brothers, are on their way to the farm and their
arrival will mean even more trouble. The only one who can help Jane and her
wounded husband, is their neighbor Dan Evans (Joel Edgerton), but he is not
only their neighbor, but also Jane's former fiancé, the man she left to become
Mrs. Hammond. At first Dan isn’t willing to help her defend her farm, but he
stil…